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Another brilliant example of conceptual art gone too far:
Artist causes London bomb scare gridlock
ALISON HARDIE SENIOR NEWS WRITER
A WOMAN claiming to be a "performance artist" was under arrest last night after a series of suspected nail bombs caused a major security alert in London.
Large parts of west London were brought to a standstill when the objects - apparently described later as art installations - were left at five locations in Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush.
Roads were blocked by police and traffic ground to a standstill as the authorities sought to deal with what had at first appeared to be a major security alert.
At the same time a woman aged 36 went to a police station in the area and told officers she had strategically planted the "devices". She also told officers she was an artist.
Some of the packages were cardboard boxes containing soft toys and training shoes with nails sticking out of them.
The alarm they caused disrupted the journey of thousands commuting to work, who were panicked into thinking they were trapped at the scene of a terror attack on the scale of the 7 July bombings of the Underground network, which claimed the lives of 52 Londoners. Police rushed bomb squad officers to the scene and threw a large cordon around the area.
Four hours after the alarm was raised at 8am, at least two of the bizarre installations were still in place.
One, in Shepherd's Bush, consisted of three cardboard tubes supporting a polystyrene "altar" on which stood some flowers and a note apparently lamenting the loss of one "Pelagius".
It read: "Your absence has gone through us like thread through a needle. Everything we do is stitched with its colour."
Scotland Yard said that shortly after 8am, officers from Hammersmith and Fulham responded to calls about a number of suspicious packages. The area surrounding each one was cordoned off while the packages were examined. They were later given the all clear and roads which had been closed were reopened.
Despite the continued presence of two of the suspect objects at lunchtime yesterday, an hour after the alert was raised the Met was able to scale down their response after the woman went to police and claimed responsibility.
A police spokeswoman said: "Whilst officers were responding to the incidents a 36-year-old woman attended a west London police station.
"The woman who is from the Shepherd's Bush area and who described herself as an artist was then arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and taken into custody where she remains."
The attempt at art by the 36-year-old woman was condemned by art experts yesterday.
Modern art historian Harriet Riches, of Warwick University, said: "There have been a number of outrageous attempts at art in the past but I cannot think of anything quite on this scale - considering the amount of resources that have been wasted and chaos caused.
"This was beyond the bounds of common sense.
"In 1971 there was an American street performer Chris Burden who got a collaborator to shoot at him to see the reaction of onlookers. Unfortunately he was hit in the arm and was quite seriously injured.
"Most of these stunts are driven by a personal cause or to self-publicise, but it seems they are getting out of hand - particularly with this latest incident."
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